Chapter 4
Aspen glanced at Eve as she parked her immaculately restored, dove gray 1978 Land Cruiser in front of her garage and killed the engine. Nestled on two acres on the bank of the Roaring Fork River ten minutes from the city, the property was Aspen’s refuge from the world. The house was too big for just her, honestly, but she’d fallen in love with the graceful, curving lines of the roofline and the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the river out back at first sight, and hadn’t even left the property before she’d put in a cash offer to buy the place.
Her decision to go all-in for Eve had been much the same. Not necessarily in a love at first sight type of way—though Eve was even more beautiful than the picture Michael had shared suggested, with pale, cream-colored skin dusted faintly with freckles and eyes as bright and clear as a summer’s day—but just in that she knew in her heart she was supposed to be at her side to help.
To some, the speed with which she’d gone from reluctance to bullheaded determination somewhere between Michael’s call and midway through her conversation with Eve might be strange, but she hated bullies, and her heart ached at the haunted look that’d shadowed Eve’s expression when she’d talked about her parents. Even now it lingered, dimming the light in her brilliant, beautiful blue eyes. From what Michael had said on the phone, she’d had a hint that the situation would be rough, but watching Eve shrink into herself as she told her about her parents cranked Aspen’s protective instincts up to eleven.
She could handle asshole exes. And even shithead parents.
What she couldn’t handle was watching a beautiful, obviously accomplished woman doubt her own worth.
I will do everything in my power to bring that spark back to her eyes, so help me god, Aspen promised herself as she cleared her throat softly to get Eve’s attention. She smiled gently when troubled blue eyes turned her way, and inclined her head toward the front door that was tucked into a wall of curved glass beneath a two-story tall, arced roofline. “Michael calls this my Hobbit Hole.”
The smile that twitched Eve’s lips as she peered past her to the main entry wasn’t much, but Aspen was still heartened by the sight of it. Eve had spent the drive from town staring blankly out the windshield, so clearly lost in her own head that Aspen put aside the questions bouncing around her own just to give her a break.
“It’s stunning,” Eve murmured, her tone lush with appreciation. “I love the lines. Most houses that I’ve seen up here lean into the whole mountain aesthetic, with pitched roofs and sharp angles, but this…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head slowly. “It doesn’t try to compete with the landscape. It flows with it, like water cascading over a boulder in a stream.”
Eve’s attention shifted from the house to Aspen, and Aspen’s breath caught as she was struck by the intelligence and the passion that glowed in Eve’s eyes.
How in the world could anyone ever treat this beautiful creature poorly?
“Yeah.” Aspen grimaced at the way her voice cracked like a pubescent boy, but couldn’t find it in herself to be too bothered when it drew a susurrus rumbling chuckle from Eve’s lips. Eve’s perfectly shaped, incredibly soft looking lips. Christ, I am so fucking fucked. “Michael never told me what you do,” she redirected the conversation away from her absolute failure to remain cool as she opened her car door. “Are you an artist?”
“Photographer,” Eve confirmed as she also climbed out of the car. She slammed the door shut, and her shoulders lifted and fell with a deep, cleansing breath as her gaze lingered on the swaying branches of one of the towering aspen trees beside the garage.
Aspen opened her mouth to ask what Eve thought of the way the bare, white wood branches danced amongst rustling boughs of the evergreens behind them, but was the unspoken question was answered when Eve turned to her with grin.
“Your house is surrounded by aspens,” Eve noted, laughter and a measure of warmth flickering in her eyes.
There you are, beautiful girl, Aspen thought even as she rolled her eyes in playfully feigned annoyance. “Well, the city was named after the prevailing local fauna, so it’d make sense for them to be around.”
Eve bobbed her head in a way that said Aspen had made a fair point as she joined her on the shoveled walkway that led to the front door. “So, Aspen ,” she drawled, her voice tinged with poorly concealed laughter, “how was it that you ended up in Aspen? I thought your family all hailed from the East Coast.”
“They do,” Aspen confirmed as she pulled her keys from the front pocket of her jeans. “Or, well, they do now. My great-great-grandmother was from this area, originally, before she headed east. But I fell in love with the mountains when I came to school out here and couldn’t see myself settling down anywhere else.”
“Which school?”
“Air Force.” Aspen pushed the front door open and gestured for Eve to go ahead so she’d get the full effect of the windows out the back of the house.
“Really? What made you decide on the Academy?”
“It was a challenge,” Aspen gave her default, though truthful answer to the question. Her decision had been multi-layered, of course, as most life-defining ones tended to be. A lot of it had to do with her desire to avoid following in her father’s footsteps with the family business. And she’d come to understand herself well enough by then to know that she thrived in a structured environment. But the clearest defining factor in her choosing the Academy was— “And I wanted to fly.”
“So, is that where you learned to fly helicopters?”
“Nah, we just did gliders and stuff at the Academy. Actual flight school was after I graduated. When I was in high school at Stonebridge, I took an aviation class that I really loved, but I’d always liked helicopters more than planes, so for my eighteenth birthday my parents hooked me up with flight lessons where I learned how to fly a little Bell 47.”
“Hueys for a bit at the beginning, but then I switched to Pave Hawks.” Aspen hadn’t missed the way Eve inclined her head in a way that said she knew what a Huey was, but her brow pinched at the second, so she explained, “Pave Hawks are support aircraft. We’d fly troops into hot zones, or swoop in when things went sideways to pull them out.”
“Why’d you switch?” Eve asked as she wandered deeper into the long sitting room area with its wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the back patio and the bubbling river beyond. Though there was a good six feet of snow on the ground and the boulders that dotted the river were blanketed in the white stuff, the water moved fast enough that it had, so far, avoided freezing.
Aspen gritted her teeth as she tried to banish the memories of burning debris and mountains of rubble that flashed across her mind. And the shoe. The small, red shoe she shouldn’t have even been able to see, but which still haunted her dreams. “I realized I was a better fit for a support role.”
Aspen was relieved that Eve picked up on the tension in her voice and changed the subject. “Aspen, this view is absolutely breathtaking.”
“Thank you.” Aspen smiled at Eve’s back, pleased that Eve approved, though she purposefully chose to not think about why that was. “This main level is just the foyer, sitting room, and a mud-slash-laundry room-slash-garage entryway. There are two guest rooms downstairs in the basement, and on the half-level up to your right is the kitchen, dining, and family room.”
Eve hummed and barely glanced at the rest of the central level as she wandered deeper into the sitting room to gaze at the landscape. The normally unobstructed view was partially blocked by the small, five-foot Balsam Fir strung with multi-colored lights that she’d set up in the far corner. It was silly, really, but after a long day in the air, she loved nothing more than coming home, starting a fire, curling up in the corner of the oversized, charcoal gray upholstered sofa that faced the windows and just looking at the tree. It calmed her in a way not much else did, and she usually ended up leaving the tree up until well past New Years, when even her best attempts at botanical life support began to fail and the needles began to fall from their branches.
“God, I could just sit here for hours staring at this view,” Eve murmured as she half-turned from the view to look at Aspen. “It’s so peaceful.”
“I often do,” Aspen shared with a smile. And then, figuring she may as well finish her verbal walk-through of her home’s layout, shared, “My office and bedroom are on the upper level.”
Eve nodded. “Would you like me to stay here while you pack?”
“I mean, you certainly can,” Aspen allowed. “But I was thinking that, you know, since we’re supposed to be dating and stuff, that maybe it’d be good for us to use the time I’m throwing some stuff into a bag to come up with a cover story to back that up?”
“Yeah.” Eve raked her lower lip through her teeth and turned her back to the windows. “You’re right. We shouldn’t waste a minute since we’re supposed to meet my parents for dinner in…” She pulled her phone from her back pocket and made a face. “Like an hour.”
“Or we can blow them off?” Aspen offered, only half joking. “Hell, you are more than welcome to stay here, too, if it’d make your life easier.”
“God, I wish,” Eve muttered. “But I can’t. They’re expecting me to play the dutiful daughter, and—”
“I get it,” Aspen interrupted gently. “It was just a thought.” She hiked a thumb toward the stairs she was leaning against. “This way, then.”
Though she didn’t look back as she started the climb to her bedroom, she did take the stairs one at a time instead of her usual two so that Eve wouldn’t think she was running away. She finally looked back when she cleared the top step to the landing that separated the room she’d made her office and her bedroom. The previous owner had left the space empty, but it was deep enough to line the back wall on either side of the window that overlooked the stairs with bookshelves and still leave plenty of room to navigate, so she’d turned it into a makeshift library. She couldn’t help but mirror the smile that bowed Eve’s lips as she watched keen blue eyes sweep over in the maple bookshelves that housed her books, miscellaneous awards, and a few models of various aircraft she'd built over the years. Tucked against the shelves were a pair of overstuffed armchairs that were a little too large for the space and needed to be shifted to reach the shelves behind them, but which were supremely comfortable.
“My office is right through there”—she gestured toward the right—“and my bedroom is this way,” she said as she wound between the chairs and the bookshelves to the doorway on the left side of the landing. Like the rest of the house, her bedroom had a wall of windows overlooking the river and was painted a neutral off-white to not detract from the view. She gestured toward the bed and the pair of brown leather armchairs that faced the small stone fireplace in the corner as she turned toward her walk-in closet, and said, “Make yourself comfortable wherever. I’m just gonna grab my suitcase and start pulling some clothes. Can you fill me in on the itinerary, so I know what to pack?”
“Oh, well,” Eve’s voice followed Aspen as she disappeared into the closet, “dinner tonight, tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday will be dressy but not, like, formal. The gala Saturday night will be a black-tie affair, though.”
Aspen nodded as she surveyed the neat row of trousers organized by color. “What did you pack for the regular dinners?” she called as she plucked two pairs of black slacks from their hangers. If they were just for evenings, she’d be able to get more than one night out of them.
“Dresses. Mostly cocktail style.”
Aspen draped the pants over her arm and looked at the dress shirts hanging above. She had a decent number of the traditional white and blues, with some green, gray, and black, but she tended to eschew ties except for formal occasions, so most of them wouldn’t work with the colored shirts. But, knowing what little she did of Eve’s parents, she knew she needed to bring her A-game. So, if that meant tying a noose on every night, she’d string herself up. “Are we talking coat and tie levels of dressy, or…?” Instead of answering, there was a sound of choked coughing from the bedroom, and Aspen poked her head out of the closet to frown at Eve. “You okay?”
Eve’s cheeks were pink as she nodded and thumped herself soundly on the chest. “Yeah, sorry. Breathed wrong.” She arched a pointed brow at the trousers dangling from Aspen’s arm. “Would I be correct in assuming that you tend toward more masculine wardrobe choices?”
Rather enjoying the color on Eve’s cheeks, Aspen joked, “Is there something about all this”—she gestured from her hair to her feet with her free hand—“that suggests otherwise? Because, if so, I need to revamp my look.”
And, oh, the way Eve’s cheeks colored even more at the gentle teasing was absolutely exquisite. Bless her, though, she rallied quickly, squaring her shoulders as she perched on the edge of the bed. “Black-tie for the gala, slacks and a sport coat or similar with a dress shirt would be fine for the other dinners, though if you’re more comfortable with a tie, that wouldn’t be out of place, either.”
Aspen grinned and tossed the slacks she’d pulled onto the bed next to Eve. “Okay. And for during the day?” she asked as she disappeared back into her closet.
“Evenings are the only events on my parents’ formal itinerary. Michael and I were going to spend the days skiing and shopping and stuff, but if you need to work or something, I can always—”
Aspen grabbed her snowboard pants and threw them blindly from the closet. “I was able to call in an old friend to take my charters after I talked to Mikey, so I’m all yours for the time you’re here. So, just some ski stuff and then just whatever casual wear for shopping, etcetera? Plus the usual PJs and toiletries?”
“Yeah.”
“So…any ideas for a story of how we met? It should be a good one,” Aspen said as she pulled a bespoke black suit from the rack. She didn’t have a tuxedo but, with the right accessories—cufflinks, a good tie, the Cartier Tank MC her grandfather had given her when she’d graduated the Academy—she knew that she could make the suit work. In the other room, Eve was quiet as she considered the question, and Aspen used the time to select her newest white dress shirt and drape a black silk tie that was brushed with a diamond pattern around the neck of the hanger. She grabbed the large, hard-sided rolling black suitcase from the corner and draped the suit pieces over her shoulder as she wheeled it into the bedroom.
Eve smiled up at her from her spot on the edge of the bed as she approached. “Do you need me to move?”
“You’re fine right there,” Aspen assured her. “I’m just gonna set this out behind you”—she hefted the suitcase onto the bed and quickly opened it—“so I can start putting stuff away.”
“What if we met at Michael’s birthday? I kind of used it as an excuse to get out of a fundraiser event for my parents’ firm, anyway, so it’s something easy to point to?”
“Could work. But needs some oompf . Maybe something like, you saw me talking to dear ol’ Mikey and tripped and fell down the stairs?”
Aspen had expected Eve to stammer and blush at the reminder of how she’d literally tripped over nothing at the airport, but Eve surprised her by doing neither. “Mm, no.” She lifted her chin confidently, and damn if it wasn’t a great look on her. “I do believe you were the one who lost her footing and tumbled down the stairs. You landed right on top of me. Just absolutely flattened me. I was bruised for two weeks afterward.”
Aspen would generally argue that she had much more finesse than to do something like that, but she had to admit that she probably would have fallen down the stairs if she’d been trying to navigate them when she’d unexpectedly laid eyes on Eve. “Let it be noted that my pride took even longer to recover, then.”
“Of course,” Eve agreed with a little laugh “You were such a sweetheart, though, sending flowers of apology and insisting on taking me out to make up for it.”
Aspen forgot all about the packing she was supposed to be doing as she stared at Eve, enchanted by the joy that sparkled so freely in her eyes. “I would definitely send you flowers. Roses?”
“So pedestrian,” Eve teased. “No. You sent a beautiful bouquet of pink camellia and calla lilies.”
Aspen arched a brow, curious if Eve understood the meaning of the bouquet she’d just invented. “You know? I would. Because calla lilies mean beauty and pink camellia means longing for you, and I would definitely—”
“Wait? Really?” When Aspen nodded, Eve asked, “How do you know?”
“My mother, Fern, is a Regency English professor at Massachusetts University,” Aspen explained. “And, for the sake of background information, my father, Paul, is the Co-CEO of West Enterprises with my Aunt Viv. He oversees their portfolio of businesses that range from manufacturing to agriculture, while my Aunt Viv focuses more on the shipping and distribution side of things.”
Eve’s brow pinched ever so slightly. “And they didn’t expect you to join the family business?”
Aspen shrugged. “They tried to groom me for it, but it wasn’t for me. My sister Alder is much more inclined for that kind of thing. How about you? Michael mentioned that your father is a lawyer, but what about your mother?”
“She’s a lawyer as well. My father, Killian, specializes in investments and acquisitions. My mother, Elizabeth, does securities and the occasional IPO.” Eve clasped her hands in her lap and looked down at them as she elaborated, “They very much expected me to follow in their footsteps, and they like to point out how inconsequential they find my chosen career. So, you know, you should probably be prepared for that, too.”
Aspen hated the way Eve’s shoulders rounded as she shared, making her seem smaller and beaten down. She waited for Eve to look back at her and, when it didn’t happen, knelt in front of her to get her attention. She put as much warmth into her gaze as she could when sad blue eyes lifted to look at her and took Eve’s hands into her own. “Art is the least inconsequential thing in the world.” She ran her thumbs over Eve’s in a gentle caress. “Art is the most human endeavor there is. What is life without creation? What is the point of anything if you don’t stop to appreciate beauty when you see it?”
“I think so, too,” Eve whispered. “But I’m afraid they don’t see things that way.”
“Well, they’re wrong,” Aspen said flatly. “And my offer to kick their asses still stands. Just say the word.”
Eve smiled weakly. “My hero.”
Aspen’s heart ached to reassure Eve that she was perfect, just as she was, but that was a heavy emotion for people who’ve just met, and she didn’t know how to convey it without making Eve uncomfortable. So, instead, she simply promised, “For as long as you need me to be.”
She’d never meant anything more.